Sources: Klain may succeed Podesta

Administration insiders say Ron Klain, who starts Wednesday as the White House Ebola czar, will be in line to succeed John Podesta as counselor to President Barack Obama when Podesta leaves, likely to chair Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“The president has been talking to Ron about different roles for a long time, and he wouldn’t accept the Ebola job unless there was a promise of something bigger,” said a longtime Klain colleague.

Story Continued Below

A senior Democrat who works closely with the White House said: “He’s very good at seeing around corners. And they know they need someone who can do that.”

Klain also would be a candidate to succeed chief of staff Denis McDonough, although McDonough seems to love his job and may stay, the insiders said.

The counselor job — which before Podesta was held by longtime Obama confidant Pete Rouse — is a big-think, wise-man counterpart to the chief of staff, without the administrative responsibility.

Klain, 53, who has one of the city’s longest résumés in the inner circles of Democratic politics, has been working for AOL co-founder Steve Case as president of Case Holdings and general counsel of Revolution LLC. His appointment has received mixed notices, with commentators wondering why Obama didn’t choose a medical or military expert.

But Democrats close to the White House said the choice of Klain — a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, Vice President Al Gore and Attorney General Janet Reno — has a logic that has been overlooked by outsiders.

Bringing Klain into the West Wing now would provide a smooth transition to Podesta’s job when he departs — probably early next year, perhaps after the State of the Union address.

“Ron is part of the small circle that Obama is comfortable with and keeps going back to,” the longtime colleague says. “He knows how to get ahead of problems and to use the levers of the federal government.”

Podesta — whose portfolio includes climate change, energy policy and big data and privacy — started in January and said he planned to stay a year. Before chairing Obama’s transition after the historic election of 2008, Podesta was White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton. Family advisers say Podesta is likely to be chairman or CEO of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

“Rahm [Emanuel] was able to work in Obamaworld DESPITE his personality; Ron works BECAUSE of his personality,” the friend said. “Ron doesn’t yell. He’s affable but tough. He is easy to work with and work for, but he’s not a pushover. That’s the combination that has worked well in the Obama White House.”

Klain also isn’t a leaker, according to former colleagues. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke and Klain was chief of staff for Gore, he gathered top aides in the Office of the Vice President and ordered that “not one drop was to leak out of the OVP,” recalled a former Clinton administration official.

Klain’s intellectual credentials are also a plus with this president: summa cum laude graduate of Georgetown, editor of Harvard Law Review (with highest grade average in his class) and clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

“The president likes extraordinarily smart people,” said the Democrat who works closely with the White House. “That’s the first thing he looks for when he’s filling a strategic position — someone who can match wits with him.”